


My Final Words

by Apherion



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2012-06-27
Packaged: 2017-11-08 16:37:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apherion/pseuds/Apherion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The final stanza to be played.<br/>Or is it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Final Words

**Author's Note:**

> This was written when I did a follower video for my Jim account. One of my Sebastian's (marksmanmoran) requested Jim write him a letter. Obviously, what letter did I decide to write. I'm left-handed, too, though my actual handwriting is nothing like how I wrote while being Jim, so enjoy even more illegible handwriting courtesy of my Jim.

Jim opened the bedside drawer, removing the pad of paper from its place, swallowing. Sebastian was already set up, not to be the one to shoot John—no, that would put him too close, able to see that he had shot himself. He wanted him to know, to see _this letter_. He’d rather him remember him curled in his arms, not with his brains blown on the rooftop.

It was the best way to go, the kindest thing he could offer Sebastian.

Yes, a coward’s way—but it was all for the game! It was for Sherlock Holmes to _lose_. No, he had already _lost_. There was just too much fun _gone_ because he’s _ordinary_ —predictable! He couldn’t possibly continue knowing that Sherlock was just like those other people. He couldn’t stand the thought of the boredom—and Sebastian could only entertain him for so long…even with this new emotion (or so he thought).

He tore the sheet of paper from the notebook—placing the writing utensil and the paper in the bedside drawer—not bothering to fold it. Sebastian would know it was for him. He placed it on his pillow, placing it just so for the sniper to see it, to read his letter. He leaned into the side where Sebastian slept, inhaling his scent one final time.

He left the door to their room open—uncustomary, that way Sebastian would be led inside to investigate. He looked sadly around the flat that would be Sebastian’s in only a couple of hours.

“Well, I better be off,” he whispered to no one, turning on his heel and exiting the flat one last time.

…

Sebastian Moran received a text from the man watching to see if Sherlock Holmes jumped. So the bloody fool did it, did he? He barked out a laughed, the rifle he had trained on Mycroft was disassembled swiftly, back in the deceitful looking violin case. This was indeed what it had all been for, the madman—his lover—was sure to be pleased.

Jim had told him that morning, after their bodies had pressed together, who his target would be, why he needed him trained on Mycroft and not John. “You’re the best,” he said simply, his chest still rising and falling in quick succession from their morning romp. “You’re the only one that can shoot that arsehole without missing, plus,” that wicked, Irish grin on Jim’s face as he leaned up, brushing his lips against Sebastian’s shoulder. “You can take it as revenge for roughing me up.” There was that manic gleam again, and Sebastian took the man’s wrists into his hands, pinning him again to the mattress.

He cracked his neck and took the tube back to the flat. Every bit of him wanted nothing more than to see Jim dancing around the living area while blasting his music playlist, giddily declaring his victory. Sebastian grinned at the thought of what Jim would deem his reward for defeating his rival. They’d probably be knocking back some of Jim’s expensive whiskey before shagging to something that should honestly only be listened to…never.

At least he’d be buzzed enough not to really care.

“Jim,” he called, shutting the door behind him once he passed the threshold. Silence. He didn’t bother with the kitchen; he once “tricked” the man into eating by practically making himself the food, commanding the man eat every last bit before he could have “dessert”. It had been a very good plan on Sebastian’s part, and if he didn’t have the control he did, it might’ve backfired on him.

The wide open living room revealed that there wasn’t a small Irishman to be found there. He turned to his right, as saw the bedroom door wide open. Jim never left their door open, he never asked why, but it was one of the things he’d noticed about the man when they started living together. His feet carried him into the room, steady as he went.

Nothing was out of order, closet door shut, bed pristinely made. The dressers looked undisturbed, too. He walked closer to the bed, wondering if he was—and there it was—what he was missing. It was lying on Jim’s pillow innocently. It was almost unreadable, Jim’s handwriting being some of the most abysmal penmanship he’d seen, and that included the handwriting of doctors. Five words jumped out at him from the unfolded page—two of which were his name.

> I can tell you now. Tomorrow, the game will be over and you’ll be able to read these words without fear of meeting the same fate. I suppose I love you. I am glad I don’t have to address this emotion for long, just until the final moment. You won’t even know I’m dead until you find this on my pillow. And I’m the one to tell you I am dead, how poetic. How tragic. So I’ll say it again because these words can never pass my lips…
> 
> I love you, Sebastian Moran
> 
> Jim Moriarty

He read it again. ‘Tomorrow’—but hadn’t he written it today? No… He sat down on the bed, the last words of James Moriarty in his right hand. No, he remembered Jim holding a notebook when he had come back from a job yesterday. When he asked, Jim told him he was going to start keeping a journal; a food journal to see if that helped his eating habits. It had been something Sebastian had been trying to get Jim to do for months. He had even shown him the first page—a grapefruit had been consumed.

He read it a third time. He could see where Jim had retraced words, and where the pen pressed down harder in the paper—embossing it on the backside. The ‘I love you’ with his name had been written so carefully. He swallowed the lump in his throat, feeling the emotion trying to rise to the surface. He set the paper back on the bed before he opened the bedside table, and the pad sat there.

He yanked it out, rifling through the pages until seeing the perforated edges of where a page had been. Bastard had written it in the middle of the book so he wouldn’t see it. He flung the decoy away from him, pissed at himself for not going through the notebook, for _trusting_ the fucking man.

His hands ran through his dark tresses, blue eyes scanning the room, looking for something to break, when his mobile buzzed with the lyrics of Bloodbath! issuing from the speaker. The irony of Jim programming that song as his ringtone was never lost on him, and he had to fight tears as he slid his thumb across the screen, unlocking the mobile to answer the call.

“Hello,” he whispered into the phone, his voice low and coarse in his effort not to cry with whomever he was speaking.

“Hello, is this Sebastian Brook?” The professional voice on the other line asked clearly into the receiver. He was taken aback, but in interest that the last name given was an indication…

“Yes, it is.” Business, his voice was still shaky, but much stronger.

“It seems your…husband…has been shot.”

“J—Richard?” He almost slipped in the shock that Jim had put him down as that kind of a contact. His heart felt like it was swelling and ripping in two at the same time and the white-hot pain in his chest seemed to intensify.

“Yes, your…hus—”

“Just say friend if it bothers you so damn much! Get on with it!” His self-control for the situation dispersed at the repeated stumbling over the fact that they were a homosexual couple.

“Err, right, your friend is in surgery right now, if you would like to—”

“Give me the goddamned address,” he hissed, hearing and retaining the information. The phone was back in his pocket as he got to his feet, and his eyes fell on the letter. He snatched it up, folding it, and putting it into his back pocket.

You better not fucking die on me, Jim, he thought as he locked up the flat. You can’t fucking leave that easy.

He ran the entire way, and Jim lay there in the intensive care unit.

“We’ve got him stabilized, but it’s up to him now.”

Sebastian pulled up at chair and looked at Jim, lying there with that sweet, childlike face as if he were sleeping, and he allowed himself to break down in the room where machines beeped and whirred, keeping the only person that mattered to him anymore alive.


End file.
